Democratic Erosion University Course Student Blog

Students enrolled in our course are encouraged to write for the course blog, and to read and comment on posts from students at other participating universities. The blog offers students the opportunity to analyze current events through the lens of the theory and case studies they engage with through the course.

These blogs reflect the views of the student authors, and not those of the Democratic Erosion Consortium.

Military-Made Sinkholes: The Constitutional Court and the Collapse of Thai Democracy

13 and 9. These numbers are of coups d’état that happened in Thailand since adopting the constitutional monarchy in 1932: 13 were successful, and 9 were unsuccessful. Democracy and the political landscape have been turbulent in Thailand, and they still are. However,...
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The Permanent Campaign: Why Populist Leaders Can Never Stop Fighting the System

Imagine winning the most powerful office in the world and still governing like you're the underdog. That's the paradox at the center of modern populism and it isn't accidental.  With Donald Trump's inauguration for his second term in January 2025, the fight did not...
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The 2026 Midterms as an Institutional Test

The upcoming 2026 midterm elections are being framed as a referendum on the current executive agenda. But to view them merely though the lens of policy preference is to miss the deeper structural issues within the current state of American democracy. As the nation...
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